We are pleased to present the 2025 volume of Voices of Practitioners. This year’s compilation showcases five pedagogical narratives that each address how educators build empathy and belonging in classrooms, programs or schools, and communities. The authors depict these themes through gestures of children helping one another, routines that carry dignity and care, the willingness of families to share their culture and values, and the stance teachers take when choosing curiosity over judgment. In addition, the 2025 collection includes a full-length teacher research article about climate literacy in a kindergarten classroom by Hongliang Hu and an article on the pedagogical narrative as a form of teacher research by Barbara Henderson. 

Highlighting teacher narratives began as an experiment in 2020 and has become a tradition. Each year, we gather story-centered inquiries written by a range of early childhood educators, most of whom are first-time authors. These inquiries draw on close observation and reflection and are grounded in educators’ lived experiences and everyday practices. They display the power of the pedagogical narrative to capture teachers’ insights so that they can share them broadly with peers and the profession.  

Pedagogical narratives can emerge from a single experience of wonder, carefully documented, then reflected upon to share the perspectives and amplify the voices of the children and teachers who were present. In this sense, pedagogical narratives are humble yet ambitious: They take small moments seriously to open pathways for larger-scale transformation in how we think about teaching, learning, and child development. They are situated in the context of community and culture. 

An Invitation 

For this fifth annual collection of pedagogical narratives, we invited teachers and other early childhood education professionals to reflect on building empathy and a sense of belonging in their own settings. We hoped to illuminate how those of us working directly with children and families foster connections and interdependence among children, families, and teaching teams. The call emphasized how moments of curiosity, wonder, or confusion can lead to deeper understanding and provide directions for meaningful change.  

Specifically, we asked contributors to describe the challenges and successes of creating communities that nurture belonging, empathy, interdependence, and connection. To spark prospective authors’ thinking, we offered some provoking questions, such as:  

• When have children, families, or colleagues felt deeply connected to the community, and how did a moment or event strengthen a sense of inclusion?  
• What happens when belonging is fragile, and what small actions or reflections help repair connections?  
• What small acts shifted dynamics in classrooms or programs, and how did these reshape teaching or leadership practices?

Thus, at the heart of our call for these narratives of belonging was a conviction: Teacher research often begins with a story. A glimpse of wonder or of tension can spark a reflection that grows into an inquiry. Written as pedagogical narratives, these stories reveal how educators deepen their understanding of teaching, learning, and human connection. 

The Stories 

From this call, we received a wide range of manuscripts, and five were selected for this year’s compilation. Each offers a vivid account of practice grounded in a specific context. Yet together they form a mosaic of how empathy and belonging come to life in early childhood settings. 

Presence and Attunement 

Amie A. Perry’s “Belonging Blooms in the Quiet: What Can Happen When a Child Feels Seen and Heard?” centers on what it means to truly pause and observe. Based on her work in a forest program, she gives us the story of a toddler holding a pinwheel. Through this, she shows how presence, pausing and noticing, resisting the impulse to direct, and allowing the child’s inquiry to unfold create conditions for belonging. Her reflections connect the child’s embodied scientific exploration with the teacher’s own journey toward curiosity and self-recognition. The narrative demonstrates that belonging blooms in the smallest, quietest exchanges. 

Bodies and Care 

In “Potty Pedagogy: Guiding Children Through Toileting with Language That Empowers,” Jen Marcus reflects on her evolving approach to toilet learning in a San Francisco classroom. Moving away from the language of “accidents,” Marcus and her colleagues experimented with more respectful and descriptive ways of talking with children about their bodies. What emerged was less stress, fewer conflicts, and a reimagining of toileting as curriculum: A time for building positive relationships, empathy, and body awareness. Her pedagogical narrative highlights how everyday routines carry the potential for empathy and autonomy. 

Multiage Empathy 

Abbey Galeza, Sara Knapp, and Jennifer Summers share “Walking Hand-in-Hand on Shared Pathways: A Pedagogical Narrative of Empathy and Multiage Collaboration.” Their story begins with an unplanned moment outdoors, when toddlers and kindergartners met on a hiking path. Instead of moving past one another, the classes joined together, hand-in-hand. What followed was an experiment in multiage empathy, as older children slowed their pace, offered guidance, and recognized toddlers as capable partners. The teachers reflect on how this moment disrupted assumptions about developmental separations and opened new possibilities for collaboration across age groups. 

Play and Belonging 

Liz Braddock’s “Creating a Sense of Belonging in a Toddler Classroom” introduces Ben and his expansive pretend play. Initially marked by conflict, Ben’s large-scale pretend play with chairs and scarves evolved into a collective classroom activity that fostered cooperation, negotiation, and joy. By choosing curiosity over correction, Braddock and her coteacher saw how honoring Ben’s play supported his sense of belonging and invited peers into deeper collaboration. The narrative underscores how teachers’ choices, whether to shut down or jump in, shape the ​​​​conditions for engagement and community. 

Seeing Possibilities Through Documentation 

Andrea Sanchez’s “Seeing Each Other’s Possibilities Through Child-Led Documentation” recounts a kindergarten inquiry where children rotated into the role of documentarian, using an iPad to capture classroom life. One child’s images and reflections highlighted persistence and creativity in her peers, showing how documentation became a practice of recognition and generosity. Sanchez demonstrates that when children have opportunities to lead documentation, they become storytellers and witnesses to one another’s strengths, deepening empathy and belonging throughout the learning community. 

Other Articles in the 2025 Volume 

This volume also features two articles that extend the conversation: A full-length teacher research study and a discussion of pedagogical narrative as a genre within the ​​​​broader field of teacher research.  

“Exploring Climate Literacy in Kindergarten,” by Hongliang Hu, begins with an observed moment: Children sorting recyclables at snack time and declaring, “We need to help the Earth.” From that kernel of a story grew a yearlong action research project in which 24 kindergartners explored climate change. Hu documents how children developed metaphors such as “the Earth has a fever” to describe environmental distress and undertook projects such as recycling, composting, gardening, artmaking, and storytelling. She began with small classroom moments, documented and reflected on them, then expanded her wonderings into a research article with the power to transform practice.  

This collection also includes Barbara Henderson’s “The Pedagogical Narrative as a Form of Teacher Research: Stories for Inquiry, Reflection, and Transformation.” This piece on methodology articulates a framing for the pedagogical narratives, ideas which are woven throughout this introduction. As Voices editors, we see this genre as one that more directly invites teachers into the research conversation. For prospective authors, early childhood education site leaders, and teacher educators, the piece offers a deeper discussion of the form’s origins, functions, and its usefulness as a bridge between storytelling and inquiry.  

​​​​​​An Invitation to Widen the Circle and Deepen Our Collective Knowledge 

As we reflect on this year’s contributions, we see that the pedagogical narrative has moved from an experiment to a steady thread within Voices of Practitioners. Teachers have taken up the invitation to write their practice as research, and their stories from this year show how empathy and belonging can be documented, analyzed, and shared. 

Teacher research changes who gets to tell the story of early childhood education. It widens the circle of voices, deepens our collective knowledge, and reminds us that the most profound insights often come from the smallest observations. We hope these pieces affirm your own moments of presence and care; inspire you to notice how empathy and belonging unfold in your setting; and invite you to write about your experiences in your own early childhood setting. If you find yourself lingering over a child’s gesture, a routine that shifted, or a challenge that invited reflection, write it down. That tiny story may be the seed of your own pedagogical narrative, and perhaps next year it will appear in Voices of Practitioners. 

Copyright © 2025 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at NAEYC.org/resources/permissions.